


Wider than the Sky

by i_claudia



Category: Firefly, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Multi, Outer Space, Reincarnation, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-06-05
Updated: 2011-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur, the disillusioned son of an important Parliament member, has never questioned his orders or his life too closely. But when his cruiser finds an ex-Browncoat named Merlin drifting through space near the Rim, he is forced to choose between remaining in the life he knows and joining a motley crew of criminals and Independence fighters set on overturning everything he’s ever worked for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was written with the vague idea that Merlin has been around being reincarnated for centuries and has grown increasingly more powerful, but his memories and sense of time and place are confused and often absent (thank you, T.H. White), and that Arthur has been reincarnated at the time of Britain’s mankind’s greatest need with no memories of his time on Earth-That-Was; other than that it is much more of a complete alternate reality and not just a future (future future future)!fic. 
> 
> The title is from a poem by Emily Dickinson:   
> _“The Brain—is wider than the Sky—  
>  For—put them side by side—  
> The one the other will contain  
> With ease—and You—beside”_
> 
> Originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/25899.html#cutid1). (5 June 2009)

Just once, Arthur reflects, he would like to have a day that was not full of idiots and frustration.

Instead, he’s ignored three messages from his father about handling the Miranda incident, dealt with one crisis in the engine room which, as far as he could tell, involved an (illicit) pet cat, three missing wrenches, and a faulty coolant system, and argued for an hour and a half with the captain of a transport ship with an expired license and a faulty containment system.

Now the cruiser’s sensors are chirping a warning: _incoming vessel_. Arthur gives up on trying to decide whether or not to actually open the messages from Uther with relief and strides over to the com to investigate what’s happening.

“Another ship, heading right for us, sir,” the ensign on duty tells him, and Arthur frowns.

“I can see that,” he snaps. “What kind of ship?”

“It looks like a shuttle pod,” the ensign says.

Arthur snorts. They’re patrolling the Rim, a good three days from any decent dock. “Is there a bigger ship anywhere between us and Boros?” he asks, confident in the knowledge that there are no scheduled flights near them for another two days. “No? Then it’s not a shuttle pod. There’s no way a shuttle pod is going to be flying all the way out here.” 

He studies the ship on the view screen. The ensign is right in one respect: the vessel is probably no bigger than some of the luxury pods he’s seen on Osiris. He thinks maybe it’s an Aegir, though if that’s the case he’s surprised it’s still in the sky – Aegirs were notoriously faulty and persnickety in their handling.

“She’s not flying, actually, sir,” the ensign says, irritatingly apologetic and sounding genuinely confused now. “She’s on the drift. Engines are completely down, from what I can tell – she’s barely running life support.”

“Scan it for life forms,” he orders absently, already planning the report. _Encountered drifting Aegir. No life forms on board. Planning to replace ensigns with damp towels, as towels will be far more amusing and much less annoying._

Before he can get much further, new insistent beeping erupts from the console.

“One life form aboard, sir.” The ensign is excited now, ready for any kind of adventure. He’s new, hasn’t been on the crew for long. He’ll lose that excitement soon enough, Arthur thinks, feeling depressingly jaded.

“Bring them in,” he says. “No point in leaving a citizen of the Alliance to drift through the black on minimal life support.”

*

As it turns out, the ‘citizen’ is one Merlin Emrys, a former Lance Corporal for the Independents and a wanted criminal.

“What’s he wanted for?” Arthur asks the crewman looking over Emrys’s files. The information is confidential, only available to top brass and a few key members of Parliament, and Arthur spends a moment wondering if he could get his father to retrieve the information. Contemplating the conversations which would undoubtedly ensue, (mostly about how he should be busy cultivating political contacts and getting ready to join Uther in Parliament instead of pissing his life away as the captain of a cruiser, nothing he hasn’t heard before,) he winces and abandons the idea.

The interrogation session he has with Emrys is even less enlightening than the man’s file.

“Where did you steal that Aegir? It’s not licensed to you.”

Emrys shrugs. “I didn’t steal it. I found it.”

Arthur hides a snort at the answer. He’d taken the chance to look at the Aegir, and wouldn’t be surprised if Emrys had “found” the Aegir at the bottom of a carrion house’s scrap heap. He’s pretty sure the only thing holding the ship together is some spit and a lot of panicked prayer.

“What is your business on the Rim?” he asks, sudden, sharp. Emrys doesn’t so much as bat an eye – a true professional, Arthur realizes. He glares as the other man stretches indifferently.

“Can’t a man just break free once in a while, go where the ’verse pulls him?”

“No,” Arthur bites out. “Not if he’s a wanted criminal.”

He’s glad to see Emrys blush at that, just a slight darkening of his ears and neck.

He continues down the list of prescribed questions, studying Emrys surreptitiously from behind the screen of his dedicated source box. Emrys is slender and pale; he certainly doesn’t look like a soldier or a criminal. If Arthur had come across him on Sihnon or Bellerophon, he would have taken Emrys for a clerk of some sort, or perhaps a Companion in training. Emrys has a sort of ethereal beauty Arthur can see as being attractive, all angles and full lips and nimble fingers.

He’s not totally immune to a pretty face himself, although the fact that this time it’s a male face that’s being so maddeningly distracting is something to be worried over and analyzed later; he’s not sly, no matter what his bitter ex-fiancée might say. It’s a feminine kind of face, he tries to convince himself, but even as he thinks that he’s studying the dark stubble on the man’s face, trying not to be distracted by the veiled deepness of Emrys’s eyes. 

He’d have to be wearing different clothes if he were truly a Companion, Arthur speculates as Emrys expertly deflects another question. The ones he’s got on – tell-tale brown coat over a stained blue shirt and neckerchief – are hideous.

The questions he’s supposed to ask are finished quickly, but he’s not quite willing to let Emrys go yet. Chances are this is the least frustrating thing that will happen to him today.

“Where are you from?” he asks, purely on impulse, because not even the identity card Emrys carries has been able to tell him that: the card is old, the location blurred beyond readability.

For the first time, something like confusion, hesitation crosses Emrys’s face. “E... Ealdor,” he says, but it’s hesitant; his voice has lost its former surety.

“Ealdor,” Arthur says, rolling the unfamiliar word around in his mouth. “And where is that?”

“Londinium,” Emrys says, but his eyes flicker with the lie. 

Arthur sighs, bizarrely disappointed that Emrys hadn’t even tried to make the falsehood a decent one. “We’re done here,” he tells the guard at the door, leaning back in his chair, and watches as Emrys is escorted back to his holding cell.

*

Later, after the night shift has taken their stations and the bright lights of the corridors have been turned down to a dim glow, Arthur lies awake in his quarters, restless, all of the reasons he shouldn’t be here spinning through his head. His father approves of active duty only so far as it was politically useful; five years of patrol entirely devoid of famous heroics is not exactly a credential that will win him an important position in the Alliance. His whole crew knows precisely who his father is and to a man make a quiet point of avoiding him unless they can’t help it. His fiancée left him after eight months of service in a storm of tearful accusations and interplanetary press coverage.

“ _Ta ma de_ ,” he growls to the empty room, and levers himself up, swinging his legs off his bunk and digging at his eyes with the heels of his hands. Maybe a walk around the ship will help him clear his head; at the very least he can go to the bridge and look over their itinerary or update the ship’s log.

He doesn’t make it to the bridge. Instead he spends an inordinate amount of time trying to pretend he’s going to the bridge before winding up in the brig, looking through the one-way screen at Merlin Emrys.

Emrys looks incredibly calm for a man facing at least three (confidential, damn it,) charges which will probably see him rot in a high security prison for the rest of his life. He’s stretched out on the narrow cot in his cell, hands folded over his stomach and eyes closed, a small smile on his face.

There’s something about him, Arthur thinks, something infinitely exciting and fresh which gets under Arthur’s skin, and for the life of him Arthur cannot explain what it is.

Emrys’s voice echoes in his head. _“Can’t a man just break free once in a while, go where the ’verse pulls him?”_ Arthur braces his hands on the wall, leaning his head down with a sigh. There’s no such thing as that kind of freedom; even if there was it would be far beyond his reach. He is tied to his post by his status and by solemn pledge; he isn’t about to give it all up for a lark.

That freedom is beyond Emrys now as well, he thinks with grim humour, but the thought isn’t as comforting as it should be.

In the end he turns away and returns to his quarters, where he sits slouched in his chair and waits for something he can’t quite name.

*

The next afternoon, he’s on the bridge debating whether or not it’s worth the trip down to the mess hall for a late lunch when Lieutenant Paris enters and asks for permission to speak, looking supremely uncomfortable and as if he’d like nothing better than for Arthur to turn down the request.

“Go ahead, Lieutenant,” Arthur says, because if he’s having a bad day after a night of no sleep he’s going to be a bastard about it and spread the mood around.

“It’s the prisoner, sir,” Paris says, and when he hesitates Arthur raises one eyebrow, waiting for him to continue. “He’s—” the lieutenant pauses again with a despairing, martyred sort of expression before lowering his voice and saying: “He’s disappeared.”

Arthur blinks. That is... unexpected. “Define ‘disappeared,’” he orders, his voice flinty.

Paris gulps. “He’s not in his cell, and security hasn’t been able to locate him on the ship. Sir,” he adds, as if that makes the _zao gao_ situation any better.

What follows is a flurry of orders and shouting and a lot of people running around trying to look like they’re very busy, and Arthur takes the first opportunity he can to duck away and retreat to his quarters, where at least no one is about to have an emotional breakdown.

Emrys is in his quarters, standing next to his desk and poking curiously through one of the drawers. Arthur stands in dumb shock and disbelief, half-convinced he’s having some sort of sleep deprivation-induced hallucination.

The door swishes quietly closed behind him, and Emrys jumps, dropping the ceremonial dagger Arthur had received on his eighteenth birthday.

“ _Gan_ ,” Emrys swears, bending to pick up the dagger and looking sheepish. “Sorry about that.”

Arthur crosses his arms and makes sure his feet were planted securely. If Emrys is going to act as if nothing is wrong, well, two can play at that game, but Arthur’s not going to be pulled into forgetting that the man’s a dangerous criminal. He glances at the button on the opposite wall which will hail security at a touch and tries to calculate the chances of being able to leap across the room and press it.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Emrys says, perching on the top of Arthur’s desk and watching him closely, eyes sharp. The stare makes Arthur uncomfortable.

“What are you doing, Emrys?” Arthur demands, stung, angry that Emrys thinks he can order Arthur around in his own quarters, on his own gorram ship.

Emrys shrugs. “Coming to see you.”

Arthur opens and shuts his mouth a few times. “Coming to...” he sputters. “What, our chat yesterday wasn’t enough for you?”

“Merlin,” Emrys says, and now Arthur is really confused.

“What?”

“My name is Merlin,” the other man says patiently.

“Fine, _Merlin_.” Arthur drawls the name, dragging it out in spite, but it ends up being disturbingly familiar in his mouth, as if he’s said it a hundred times before in the same voice. “What is this about? How did you get out of the brig?”

Emrys – Merlin – gives him a piercing look. “It isn’t time yet,” he says, and really, this is turning into the most surreal conversation Arthur’s ever had, including that misunderstanding in the bar in New Dunsmuir with the old man who’d had a false eye and carried a robotic lizard around in his pocket. “Freedom,” Merlin muses thoughtfully. “You think about it a lot, don’t you?”

Arthur stiffens. “I don’t—” he begins. “I am free. I don’t need to think about it.”

“You aren’t,” Merlin says, still looking at him, through him. “You dream about it, dreams of flying wherever you want without having to answer to anyone else.” He sighs. “It’s a pity,” he continues, voice soft, and Arthur gets the feeling these words aren’t meant for him. “But it isn’t time yet, not nearly.”

Arthur is speechless, his face crinkled with complete bewilderment, until Merlin gets up and tries to move past him.

“Hold it,” Arthur advises, drawing himself up and shaking free of whatever doubts Merlin has planted in his mind. “You’re still under arrest, you know, and even if you can inexplicably disappear from my brig you’re still on my ship in the middle of nowhere. You aren’t going anywhere.”

Merlin regards him almost fondly for a moment. “I’ll be back for you,” he assures Arthur, and before Arthur can really process that the world goes black.

He wakes up to a splitting headache and Lieutenant Paris’s face hovering over him. Apparently no one has laid eyes on Merlin, but the old Aegir is gone and after Engineering reports that some of their fuel cells have gone missing it’s pretty reasonable to assume the prisoner took the cells and the Aegir and ran.

If that bothers Arthur in more ways than simply having a wanted criminal disappear under his nose and the noses of five hundred crew members, he doesn’t examine the feeling. And if sometimes Merlin’s voice comes echoing into his head in the middle of the night, whispering about freedom and following the pull of the ’verse, that’s just because Arthur’s always had an overactive imagination.

* * *

After two months, dozens of horrible meetings with stern officials about the state of security on his cruiser, and precisely one dinner with his father which was far more awful than all of those meetings combined, Arthur and his ship are back on regular patrol and under attack from three vessels full of Reavers.

Arthur is standing grimly on the bridge, giving orders for evacuation and watching in cold horror as the Reavers slowly work past all of their defences. One of the ensigns, ghastly pale, informs him that the lower levels have been breached, and he barks the command to seal off the lower decks without emotion. 

There will be time for emotion later. First he has to evacuate his crew.

“Evacuate the bridge,” he says finally, when the other levels have been cleared. “Get yourselves to the escape pod; don’t look back.”

The two ensigns left on the bridge and his first officer all stop and turn to stare at him. The navigator, already in the turbolift, holds out her hand to keep the doors from closing.

“Captain,” his first officer says. “You’re coming with us.” It comes out sounding much more like a question than he thinks it was intended. 

He links his hands together behind him and straightens unconsciously. “Commander Frakes,” he says. “The remaining escape pod has room for four people. You will take Ensigns Kim and Mayweather and Lieutenant Reed, and report to the nearest Alliance outpost.”

“Captain,” Frakes begins, but Arthur shakes his head.

“Those are my orders, Commander.”

Frakes pulls herself together and offers a salute; the others follow suit, and Arthur can see the glimmerings of respect in their expressions.

He stands at attention until the turbolift’s doors close, then turns back to the com.

Merlin Emrys, of all people, is standing there, looking at him with exasperation. “You never change,” he says.

Arthur ignores the thrill that flares beneath his ribs at the sight of Merlin in favor of scowling. “How would you know? And how the hell did you get back onto my ship?”

“Come on,” Merlin says instead of answering the question, pointing to a door Arthur swears has never been there. Arthur doesn’t budge. He’s the captain; he has to make sure the cruiser defends the escape pods; the captain goes down with the ship. He’s watching the screens on the com out of the corner of his eye – Frakes and the rest have made it to the escape pod, but the Reavers are swarming throughout the ship and will probably be on the bridge within minutes. 

He wishes suddenly, irrationally, that Merlin hadn’t come back, that he was still somewhere out in the black, drifting in his creaky old ship.

Merlin rolls his eyes and _pulls_ , and while Arthur is positive he never moves an inch, he’s suddenly next to Merlin and they’re running, through the door and down narrow steps which apparently lead straight into the dilapidated Aegir.

“How did you do that?” Arthur calls as Merlin fires up the engines.

“Later,” Merlin promises. “There will be plenty of time to tell you everything before we find them.”

Arthur thinks about asking who ‘they’ are, but he figures Merlin won’t give him a straight answer anyway, so he contents himself with sitting back and watching the stars flicker by as the cruiser grows distant behind them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mal allows himself a sigh. He would waste the energy to wish his life were a little less interesting, but he figures if it was, he’d just get bored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains spoilers for _Serenity_.
> 
> Originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/28299.html?#cutid2). (27 August 2009)

Mal doesn’t exactly want a new pilot, hell, he doesn’t want to even _think_ about hiring a new pilot, not with the loss still so fresh with the crew. Zoe didn’t say much when he brought the subject up, just gave him a look he reckoned meant she didn’t want much to talk about it and left the table.

But here he is anyway, interviewing a scrawny guy with weird ears and recommendations piled higher than an Alliance cruiser.

The man – just a kid, really, Mal thinks – can certainly handle _Serenity_ ; Mal’s not sure even he has ever been able to make as perfect a landing as the kid makes after their test run. He doesn’t let himself think about how it compares to Wash. There’s no time for grief, not when there are still jobs that need doing, not when the only other person besides himself capable of flying his ship comes over all crazy every second time he looks at her. Merlin Emrys, according to his references and what Mal’s just seen, is a master in the air without all the creepifying talk River brings along.

“Well,” Mal says after Merlin’s shut down the system expertly. “The job’s yours, if you want it. I’ll be straight with you; it’s no easy life with us. We work what jobs we can get, and usually the pay’s not near enough what it should be.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” the kid says, and Mal catches something in his face: a shadow, fleeting familiar darkness.

“How old are you?” he asks, on a hunch.

Merlin shrugs. “Twenty-three, give or take,” he says. “Ma was never too hung up on keeping track.”

“Too young to remember much of the war then,” Mal comments, off-hand, leaning back in his chair.

“Old enough to remember the important bits,” Merlin shoots back, and Mal smiles to himself when the kid’s eyes flash. He’s got a soldier here, no mistake. Kid probably lied about his age to get in; as he remembers the Independents weren’t too picky about who signed up, long as they could shoot a gun.

He holds up his hands in apology. He’s going to like this one, he thinks. “So you want the job or not?”

“Yeah, think I do,” Merlin says. “But I’ve got a condition.”

*

“Sir,” Zoe says, in her best _with all due respect, you are the biggest idiot asshole I’ve ever worked for_ voice, “I didn’t realize we was taking on passengers.”

“We ain’t,” Mal says, trying to be cheerfully oblivious to her tone. 

“Well, I’m sure seein’ what looks like passengers from here.”

“Zoe,” Mal says as Merlin comes up the metal stairs in _Serenity_ ’s hold and draws level with them. “Meet Merlin; he’s our new pilot.”

Zoe regards Merlin in silence for a moment, then turns on her booted heel and walks away, heading toward crew quarters. Mal watches her go for a moment before turning back to Merlin.

“She’s been a mite tetchy recently,” he apologizes. “Don’t trouble yourself overmuch about it.”

Merlin nods and sets down his bag, half-turning to wave the man behind him forward. “This is Arthur,” he says, and Mal takes a moment to size the guy up. He’s blond, brawny but not as bulky as Jayne, and the way he carries himself speaks to years of training. He looks smug.

“Captain Reynolds,” Mal introduces himself, sticking out a hand. “I hear you’re a decent fighter.”

Arthur has a sure handshake, firm, almost aggressive. “I can hold my own,” he acknowledges.

“Good,” Mal says, not caring if he sounds gruff. “Because apparently you come with my new pilot or I don’t have a pilot at all, so you’d best be worth your keep.” He addresses that last bit to Merlin too, making sure both of them know exactly who’s in charge.

Arthur gives him a level, impassive look, and doesn’t _that_ play on Mal’s nerves. “Kaylee!” he hollers, and the mechanic pokes her head out of the infirmary. “Stop flirting with the doc and show these fine fellows their quarters.”

Kaylee pulls a face but comes down the stairs anyway. “I’m not _flirting_ with Simon, Cap’n,” she says, exasperated. Mal ruffles her hair.

“Sure, and I’m the governor of Boros,” he says. “They’ll have to be in guest quarters for now; there’s no room for them elsewhere.”

She furrows her brow. “But Cap’n,” she objects, “there’s just the one room left in guest quarters; River’s got her own room now, remember?”

“There’s two beds,” Mal retorts. “And that’s the only place we got.”

Arthur looks less than pleased, Mal notes, but Merlin elbows him in the ribs before he can say anything. 

“That’s fine,” Merlin says as Arthur scowls and rubs the place where Merlin elbowed him. “We’re used to sharing space.”

“Too bloody right,” Arthur grumbles. “Three months aboard that miserable tin can of yours...” Merlin elbows him again, but Mal can see the crinkling of a smile around his eyes.

“This way,” Kaylee chirps, and they follow her, Merlin heaving his bag back up over his shoulder.

Mal sighs and rubs his face. All he wants is sleep and maybe something to eat that isn’t protein, but he’s pretty sure he isn’t going to get either anytime soon.

“Cap’n,” another voice says behind him, and he sighs. Of course Jayne wants to talk to him now, when he’s still tired from interviewing pilots and far too ready to call it quits for the day.

He turns around to see Jayne lounging against the railing. “What is it?”

“How come we’re taking on new folk?” Jayne demands. “We ain’t got hardly enough for ourselves, let alone splittin’ it with strangers.”

“We need a pilot,” Mal points out, crossing his arms. “I can’t fly this thing if I’m on a job. And the extra gun won’t go amiss, either, not with my sky gettin’ so crowded.”

“That still leaves us with a haul split eight ways, ’stead of six,” Jayne says, “and I sure didn’t come aboard for the _company_ on this ship.”

“It’s not up for discussion. You’ll get your share, same as everyone else. Now go lock up those doors; we’re leavin’.”

“This conversation ain’t over,” Jayne warns, but Mal is done with arguing.

“Yes it is,” he says. “We need them, Jayne. Go lock up.”

He starts up the stairs before Jayne can work up the indignation to reply. “ _I_ don’t ruttin’ need them,” Jayne mutters, but he clatters down the steps to the hold to close the doors. 

Mal allows himself a sigh. He would waste the energy to wish his life were a little less interesting, but he figures if it was, he’d just get bored.

*

Arthur doesn’t like the ship.

“I don’t like this ship,” he tells Merlin as they settle into their new quarters.

“Too bad,” Merlin says, flopping down on his bunk and grinning. Arthur is about to explicitly enumerate all the many ways he already feels uneasy about _Serenity_ and her crew when Merlin goes quiet, stiff; listening for what Arthur can’t tell, but he’s learned enough in the past months with Merlin to leave the man be when he gets like this.

Instead, he silently grabs for Excalibur and gets behind the door, pressing his back against the wall and checking to make sure his wrist knives are loose in their sheathes. Maybe the big one, the obvious hired muscle, has come to take look at them, intimidate them a little, maybe, just in case they came on with any big ideas – and what kind of salvage ship is this, that they need two guns plus a first officer who looks like she’d as soon shoot you as say hello?

Arthur’s dealt with the muscle’s type before; he’s not all that worried about it as long as Merlin doesn’t get stupid and get in the way, but he has to say the whole story about this ship and its crew is mighty fishy.

To his surprise, it’s not the hired gun or even the pretty mechanic who comes through the door, but a thin slip of a girl in a cardigan at least five sizes too big and dark hair hanging down her back.

“Hello,” says Merlin, not relaxing. “I thought someone was trying to dig around in my head.”

“Not digging,” the girl says, sounding far off. “Just looking. Like you.” She tilts her head, gazing at Merlin intently. “Always looking, so long spent looking for the same thing, never finding it, thinking maybe next time, maybe the next world. Starting to think maybe the Verse is too big, maybe you’ll never find what has to be out there. Starting to think maybe it isn’t even out there, drifting through space. So many lives...”

She gasps, blinks, and Merlin sits up, back ramrod straight as she reels back. Arthur readjusts his grip on Excalibur; he doesn’t understand a bit of what’s going on in front of him, and he doesn’t like it. “Merlin?” he asks, but Merlin ignores him.

“I don’t like people in my head,” he says softly. “There are places no one should go.” He and the girl stare each other down until she smiles, her face going light and sweet with joy. Merlin relaxes, and Arthur realizes exactly how tense the air had been, crackling with things that made the hair on his nape stand on end.

“You’re interesting,” she says, tugging on a strand of her long hair. “I like you.”

“Do you play chess?” Merlin asks, because he is obviously a crazy man, which Arthur knew before but is now becoming clearer than ever. 

The whole situation is making Arthur feel damned annoyed, and when he sees Merlin smile back at the interfering chit, he can’t stand still any longer. “Is anyone going to fill me in on what’s going on?” he demands. “I’m feeling decidedly left out here.”

The girl turns – twirls, really – to look at him. “You should put your gun down, Arthur Pendragon,” she tells him. He glares at her and refuses to move.

“Arthur,” Merlin begins when Arthur makes no move to put down his weapon, but before he can say anything, the girl cocks her head, fixes Arthur with a damn unnerving stare, and curtseys, sweeping the sides of her tan cardigan out as if it was a skirt.

“Someone tell me what the hell is going on aboard this ship,” he snaps, but he puts the gun down. Somehow it feels rude to stand there with Excalibur when the girl’s done something that goes past strange and into surreal.

“He’s changed,” she says, still holding onto the edges of her cardigan. “And he hasn’t changed.” She looks back at Merlin, her voice going dry. “He’s always been a prat, hasn’t he?”

With that, she wanders out of the room, leaving Arthur sputtering and Merlin cackling with laughter.

*

 _Serenity_ doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry to go anywhere; they spend a few days puttering through space, planet hopping their way through the sky. Arthur is slowly acclimating to life onboard, returning Jayne’s measuring gazes and flirting with Kaylee just to see Simon flush. He hasn’t seen Zoe much; he suspects no one really sees her unless she wants to see them.

Mostly, though, he’s been wandering around poking into dusty corners, learning the layout of the ship. He’s quickly realizing why Firefly class ships are such a favorite for salvage, illegal or otherwise: every time he turns away from what seems to be the end of a crawl space, a new path or storage space presents itself. In one way it’s frustrating – on the cruiser he’d prided himself on knowing every inch of the vessel within a month, and the Alliance ship had been hundreds of times bigger than this piece of _gou-shi_ – but it certainly gives him something to do that isn’t annoying Merlin or running afoul of the creepy girl who’d invaded their quarters.

The girl, he’s learned, is named River, and as soon as he’d had that little tidbit of information he’d known exactly who she was: River Tam, wanted fugitive with a file locked under even more confidentiality clauses and passwords than Merlin’s. He’d recognized her brother too, from his photo on the Cortex, which made him more curious than ever. 

What _is_ this ship? He knows about the Miranda incident – who in the Alliance doesn’t, by now? – but unlike his father he doesn’t know what forces were at work operating behind it, not really. Now that he’s had long enough to adjust to exactly which ship he’s ended up on and figured out why Malcolm Reynolds looks so damn familiar, he wants to know more. He wants to know _why_ , what Reynold’s angle is. 

“Arthur,” Merlin had said sternly the night before. “You are not allowed to make life difficult for these people.”

“Difficult?” Arthur had asked, propping his feet up on Merlin’s bunk. “Why would I ever make life difficult? You’re the one who makes life difficult just by breathing.”

Merlin had scowled. “You know what I mean, Arthur,” he’d said. “These are good people. You’re dead, as far as the Alliance knows, and you’d better stay dead to them, not turn up with a ship of fugitives in tow.”

Arthur sighs now, remembering the argument which followed, and turns away from the dead end he’s run into above the engine room. He’s got no interest in turning the Tam siblings or any of the others in; Merlin had that all wrong. Arthur’s seen how the Alliance works practically since birth – he knows all too well how often those turning fugitives in disappear themselves. Besides, he’s got no pressing desire to return to the tender mercies of his father and the backstabbing high society that is the Alliance elites.

No, it’s not the Alliance driving this itch under his skin to know more. He just has to get used to not being in charge, is all. He’s an employee of Mal Reynolds, he reminds himself, slithering carefully through a ceiling panel and dropping down to land silently next to the revolving engine. It’s not his business to know everything anymore.

*

Mal is on the bridge with Merlin, tinkering with a few loose bolts and definitely not avoiding Zoe, who has made her displeasure with him pretty damn clear.

“Captain,” Merlin says, sudden-like, not turning away from where he’s been hunched over the control panel laying in coordinates. “Could I offer you a piece of advice?”

Mal raises both eyebrows and sits back on his heels. “Offer all you like,” he says after a pause. “Can’t promise as I’ll listen to it, though.”

“You know that crate of laser pistols and carbines you’ve got hidden behind the second panel in the cargo bay? You should probably move those to a safer place. There’s a nice spot under one of the floor plates in the infirmary.”

Mal stares. “I’ll... take it under advisement,” he says, then stops. “How did you even know that was there?”

“River knows about it too,” Merlin says, shrugging, which doesn’t actually answer Mal’s question. “It’s not hard to figure out.”

Mal is about to argue that no one, _no one_ , has ever found anything he didn’t want them to on _Serenity_ , but then he remembers that ordinary rules don’t exactly apply to River. He looks at Merlin, wary now.

“Have you and River ever met before?” he asks, casual – too casual, because Merlin looks up and gives him an amused glance.

“I was never in the facility she was imprisoned in, no. Don’t worry, Captain; I haven’t brought you more trouble from those hunting River.”

“I notice you didn’t say you hadn’t brought me trouble,” Mal is quick to point out.

Merlin laughs at that. “No, I didn’t, did I?” He’s smiling at the screen in front of him now, like he’s in on some private joke Mal doesn’t get.

“You settling in okay so far?” Mal asks after a brief silence. It’s not the smoothest question he’s ever asked, but Merlin’s laughter is a trifle unsettling when he’s still trying to figure out how Merlin and Arthur are going to fit into his crew.

“Just fine, thanks.”

“And Arthur?” Mal presses. It’s not that he doesn’t like Arthur, exactly. The man is certainly affable enough, if he’d only quit teasing Simon. Mal just doesn’t trust him.

Merlin thinks for a moment. “It will take him some time,” he says. “But I think he’ll find a place here. I think he’ll enjoy it, even.”

Mal studies Merlin’s face. “You two have much of a history together? You seem pretty close.” He makes the question offhand, unassuming as he concentrates on the wrench in his hand, but he knows Merlin will probably pick up on the layers underneath it. _Am I going to have a problem with either of you?_

“We all have histories,” Merlin says quietly, and it was never all that funny but it’s getting frustrating now, how Merlin answers questions without actually answering them. Before Mal can say anything else, though, Kaylee comes around the corner.

“Cap’n?” she asks, not seeing him at first, hidden as he is.

“Here,” he says, standing up from behind the console and dusting off his hands. “What d’you need, Kaylee?”

She leans against the doorframe. “Just wondering where we’re puttin’ in next,” she says. “One of the valves is leakin’ again and there’s only so much a girl can do to keep the coolant system from draining dry without a replacement.”

“Just keep her flying until we get to Beaumonde,” he tells her. “We’ve got to stop over in New Dunsmuir and fill up on supplies before heading out to Dyton Colony to deliver the goods.” The goods which he now has to move, thanks to Merlin and River’s interference, he thinks irritably. “You should be able to get everything you need there.”

Kaylee’s face lights up. “New Dunsmuir?” she asks. “Where Inara’s temple is? Are we gonna stop in and see her at all?”

“I don’t want to give her no bother,” Mal says, and when Kaylee frowns he presses on. “She’s a busy woman now. Anyway, this is supposed to be a quick trip, in and out and on our way, understand?”

Kaylee’s still frowning, but she nods. 

“Good,” says Mal, and turns back to the bolts he’s working on.

“Don’t see why we can’t at least say hello,” Kaylee grumbles, but she leaves without pressing the point.

It doesn’t take long for Merlin to ask the obvious question. “Inara?”

“Registered Companion,” Mal says in his best disinterested voice. “Traveled with us a while, til she couldn’t take our way of life no more. Haven’t heard from her much at all since she left; Kaylee’s taken it pretty hard.”

Of course, that’s when the transmitter crackles to life.

“Hello?”

Mal would know that voice anywhere. Inara sounds confused; she doesn’t recognize Merlin, he realizes, and scrambles to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” Inara is saying. “Is this _Serenity_ , or have I—”

“Inara,” Mal says, finally sliding in behind Merlin so he’s visible in the viewscreen. “Miss us yet?”

It’s hard to tell with the quality of the screen, but Inara looks pale. “You mean you? Hardly,” she shoots back, and for a minute he thinks he’s mistaken about how shaken she looks.

She proves his first impression right when she glances around her before leaning close to the screen. “Mal,” she says, her voice low, and if Mal didn’t know better he’d say she was frightened. “You have to help me. I wouldn’t ask, but they’ve tied _Serenity_ to Miranda, and they’ve tied me to _Serenity_. The Alliance is coming for me, Mal, and I fear for you as well.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this problem with WIPs, which is that I get obscenely attached to them and yet somehow take years to finish. sigh.
> 
> Originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/71455.html). (30 May 2011)

Mal strides up to the temple with his shoulders back and his chin up. It’s one thing he’s learned, if he’s learned anything in life on the Rim: act confident, and no one messes with you. People think you know what you’re about if you act like you’re better’n they are, and they leave you alone. It’s a trick he wishes he’d known years back, when he needed it even more than he does now.

Jayne’s clearly not learned the same trick. “Jayne,” Mal mutters out of the corner of his mouth. “Quit messing with your collar. You’re drawing attention we don’t need.”

“I ain’t a gorram pretty boy,” Jayne grumbles back. “Ain’t used to all this... starchiness.”

Mal fixes him with a look. “That’s too bad,” he snaps. “You’ll live. Come on.”

They make their way deeper into the complex without incident, Mal trying to remember Simon’s instructions. The doc had known the layout of the temple almost exactly; Mal hadn’t cared to inquire too close as to why, not with Kaylee standing there looking crosser by the minute.

“Mal,” Jayne hisses in warning, and they duck into a side corridor as a group of purplebelly feds marches by. 

“Too close for my likin’,” Jayne says, and Mal shoots him a warning look.

“We aren’t leaving without Inara.”

“I never said we should!” Jayne replies, outraged, as if that wasn’t at all what he had in mind. Mal keeps going, ignoring the way Jayne’s pockets get a mite heavier every time they pass another little shrine sunk into the wall with gold statues set about it, all decorative-like. Way he sees it, you don’t want something nicked, you don’t leave it lying out like that.

The lock on the door takes him all of three seconds to jimmy, and only by rolling forward very fast is he able to avoid a mean blow to the head once he gets it open.

“Mal?” Inara says in what Mal thinks is hurtful disbelief; she nearly drops the heavy vase she’d tried to brain him with. “What in all the worlds are you doing _here_?”

“Getting you out of your little kettle of hot water,” Mal tells her cheerfully, and she purses her lips at him. 

“I hailed you so I could ask you to save my client files somewhere the military couldn’t get to, not so you could fly right into the arms of the Alliance,” she says. It figures Inara’d be especially crotchety and argumentative about being rescued.

Jayne steps into the room over Mal’s legs and shuts the door. “It weren’t exactly out of our way,” he points out, and Inara’s getting herself all geared up for some kinda righteous comeback when Mal decides he’s ready to move them all along.

“You got all the things you need?” he asks while Jayne goes poking around the room, discovering a tray of frilly-looking deserts and stuffing five of them in his mouth at once. Inara looks over her shoulder before she thinks better of it, and Mal follows her gaze to a few colorful bundles half-hidden in the corner.

“I’m leaving tonight,” she tells him, sticking her chin out. “Not with you. There’s a friend—”

“Of course you aren’t,” Mal says, cheeky, getting to his feet and brushing his knees off. No sense in getting the fine clothes he’s wearing dirty, even if they aren’t his and the original owner is lying unconscious somewhere in a hedge outside the complex. “You’re coming now, with us.”

Inara raises one perfect eyebrow. Damn, but she’s good at that, Mal thinks, remembering. “Is this a rescue or a kidnap?”

Mal plays his trump card. “It’s a social call, can’t you tell? Kaylee’s been missing you something fierce.” He reopens the door cautiously and peers out. “Jayne, we’re clear. Remember,” he says reprovingly as Jayne leaves. “A _small_ explosion. Don’t go making things too hot.”

“Know how to do my gorram job,” Jayne mutters, sticking one last pastry into his mouth and trotting off down the corridor.

“Explosion?” Inara asks, suspicious, while Mal grabs her bags.

“Diversion,” Mal explains. “Just a little one, don’t you fret.”

“Mal—”

The room shakes with the force of the explosion, cutting off whatever she was going to say. Mal grins. 

“That’s our cue,” he says. “Come on!”

She doesn’t look particularly chirpy about it, but she goes anyway. No one pays them any mind at all; there’s smoke everywhere and everyone’s mostly focused on getting their own selves out. Mal allows himself a few silent congratulatory words. He does love a good diversion.

They meet up with Jayne behind the complex in the little forest patch they’d argued about and finally agreed on earlier—which is to say, Jayne argued and Mal had given him a particularly hairy eyeball until he’d subsided into grumbling. 

Now, Jayne’s covered in stone dust and looking mighty pleased with himself. “Nice work,” Mal says, giving credit where credit is due, but before they can bask for long in their success, Inara starts back in on Mal again. 

“How am I supposed to earn a living now?” she asks, arms crossed and looking more fractious by the minute. “Since in _kidnapping_ me you make me a fugitive too.”

Mal shrugs. “Social call,” he corrects again. “Not a kidnapping. And you can braid Kaylee’s hair or whatever manner of thing you can think of.” That makes her look downright furious, but he has her number. “You weren’t going to be working on any Alliance world, anyhow, not with your name tied with Miranda. Way I see it, we’re doing you a favor, getting you out of trouble’s way before trouble really comes knocking.”

She doesn’t look any less tetchy at his words, but at least she’s tetchy in silence after that.

Jayne’s been pretending he isn’t listening and scanning the sky for _Serenity_. “Must be early,” he says, and Mal squints at the sun through the scrubby branches.

“Nah,” he says. “We’re right on time. They’re late.” 

He tries not to think about all the things that might’ve gone wrong with his ship, but before he can get too far there’s a thunderous, hollow boom and a blinding white flash from somewhere near the complex, followed by thick plumes of poisonous-looking black smoke. Mal remembers that there’s an Alliance fuel cell depot on Beaumonde.

He rounds on Jayne, who will always be his first suspect when things explode. “Gorrammit, Jayne, I said a _small_ explosion!”

“That weren’t me,” Jayne protests, spreading his hands wide. “I swear it weren’t!” There’s truth in his eyes, too, which leaves Mal with two options. Either there’s some other malcontent setting Alliance things on fire for the hell of it, or his ship is getting up to escapades he don’t know about. 

He paces between the trees, glaring his feelings to the sky. Where the _hell_ is his ship? He swears again. “When I get my hands on that green pilot, I’m gonna wring his scrawny gorram neck.”

*

As it turns out, though, Mal doesn’t have to wring anyone’s neck as all, as Zoe’s already mostly taken care of it for him.

“Where the _hell_ were you?” he demands when _Serenity_ finally shows up, striding up the gangway. Zoe meets him in the hold. “What’ve you been doing with my gorram ship?”

“Ask your new pilot,” she tells him, cool as a Boros moonrise, arms crossed, and there are levels to that last word he doesn’t care to even start getting into.

“Close it up,” he tells her as Kaylee speeds by him, all gleeful, toward Inara. “I want to be out of Alliance sky yesterday, hear?”

She doesn’t answer, just walks by him; he takes a minute to weigh whether it’s worth it to try and figure out what’s eating her before deciding what he really wants to do is yell at someone who might actually be afraid of him.

Merlin, looking rightly shamed, spills everything as soon Mal sits him down and fixes him with his best glare. Mal doesn’t even have to threaten to throw Merlin out of the airlock, which is almost a pity, as Mal really thinks some violence would do his mind a world of good about now.

“I’m sorry about being late,” Merlin says, and Mal has to concentrate hard on breathing.

“Late? Late’s the last thing I’m worried about. I’m more worried about the fact that you went and _blew up Alliance hardware_ with my ship while you left me twiddling my thumbs waiting for you.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Merlin says brightly, clearly not picking up on Mal’s actual point. “Arthur knew exactly how to get through the depot’s security perimeter, and River and I figured out where to start the explosion so it’d all blow out, to maximize the—”

Mal seizes on the most important part of that sentence. “Arthur? This was Arthur’s idea?” Come to think of it, he hasn’t seen Arthur since coming back on board, which is suspicious. Usually the man’s hanging around, irritating Mal because he never offers suggestions but he nearly twists himself into knots _wanting_ to, which Mal can’t hardly abide.

Merlin looks abashed. “Yes?” he hazards.

This, Mal thinks feeling himself starting to get good and riled, this needs to stop right here, right now. He gives Merlin his best _I killed people in the war and don’t you forget it_ glare. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he says. “ _I_ am the captain of this ship.”

“Yes,” Merlin agrees readily.

“That means you follow _my_ orders. Not Arthur’s, not anyone’s. Mine.” He adds, as an afterthought: “Or Zoe’s, if I’ve left her in charge of the ship,” because Zoe’s smart enough not to go blowing up Alliance property unless she’s got a damned good reason. “We clear?”

“Yes,” says Merlin, less enthusiastically. Mal thinks for a minute on whether to leave him twisting for a minute longer, but in the end he decides to save it for Arthur. 

“Whose orders do you follow?”

“Yours.”

“That’s right,” Mal says, and claps him on the shoulder slightly harder than is necessary. “Don’t you forget it. Now do your job and fly us out to Dyton before the Alliance gets us figured out.” He’s about to leave, but then something that’s been bothering him, niggling at the back of his mind, makes itself clear. “Merlin,” he says, slow and steady-like. “You said you used _Serenity_ to blow up the fuel depot?”

“Yes?” Merlin says.

“How? Firefly-class ships like her don’t have guns.”

Merlin blinks, all wide-eyed innocence in a way Mal hadn’t thought anyone but Kaylee could master. “They don’t?”

Fuck it, Mal decides—discretion is definitely the better part of gorram valor here—and goes off to find someone he might be able to hit without feeling like he’s kicked a baby.

*

Mal finds Arthur locked in the room he shares with Merlin, his eye puffing up in some mighty pretty colors, and feels a swell of pride for Zoe’s right hook. Arthur doesn’t move when Mal opens the door and enters, and they look at each other for a bit, wary as black market traders on Persephone.

“So,” Mal says, as light and unconcerned-like as he can manage under the circumstances, leaning against the doorway. “Where the hell’d you get the idea you’d make yourself captain of my ship?”

Arthur has the nerve to look offended. “What?” he demands, drawing himself right up where he’s sitting on his cot. “One little side-trip to make things easier for everyone, and now you’re calling mutiny?”

“I wanted quiet,” Mal tells him, mostly losing the battle against showing his anger. “I wanted quick, I wanted easy. Blowing up an Alliance depot is none of those; we’re lucky we don’t have a gorram fleet of cruisers running hot and looking for us after the little stunt you pulled.”

“They’d need fuel to chase us,” Arthur points out. He’s smug. Mal hates him just a little bit more for that. “And there isn’t any. Won’t be for at least three more days, either, when their next shipment comes in.”

Mal glares at him because he’s right, damn it, but that only makes Mal want to punch his face in _more_.

“I should throw you off my ship right now.”

Arthur shifts forward until he’s facing Mal squarely, both feet planted on the floor. “Look, captain,” he says, and Mal doesn’t miss the way he emphasizes the title, just a little, “you can believe me or not, but I’m not interested in running your ship. I saw an opportunity and I took it; there was no way we were going to get out of New Dunsmuir without being chased.”

“You don’t do that with my ship,” Mal snaps back. “Not with my crew, not without passing it by me.” 

He’s going to say more, going to work himself up into a fine and righteous fury, when Arthur spreads his hands and says, “You’re right,” and distracts him entirely.

“Damn right I’m right,” he says. “And if I wanted to throw you out the airlock for mutiny right now, I’d be right too.”

Arthur doesn’t even blink. “You could,” he agrees. Mal’s about to forge on, make Arthur bend a little further back until he breaks Arthur’s calm... but he stops at a quiet thought starting to organize itself in his mind. He crosses his arms instead, studying Arthur closely. There’s military in his face and shoulders, command in the way he carries himself and the way he watches Mal—where everyone _else_ on his ship looks up to him as uncontested captain, the look Arthur gives him speaks of a man who’s used to giving orders, not taking them—and _cao bei_ , he thinks, this is exactly how he needed the day to end.

“Maybe I will,” Mal says; “it’s nothing more than you deserve, Arthur. Or is that even your real name?” He reaches for his knife while he speaks, slowly, his fingers creeping into his pocket and curling around its familiar handle.

“Of course it’s my real—” Arthur starts, all offended-like, and then Mal sees the realization settle in behind Arthur’s eyes. “I see.”

“Gorram right you see; now I see too,” Mal says, pulling his knife out and lying it nice and smooth along his thigh, ready. “How long you been passing information to the Alliance?”

“I haven’t passed anything.”

“Sure you haven’t, and I’m governor of all Osiris.”

Arthur leans forward, but Mal makes a little motion with the knife, and he sits back again, carefully. Mal hates dealing with operatives. It’s always messy, and Kaylee will fret when Jayne demands to know why he wasn’t invited to the party, and Inara will—well. Inara will just be more insufferable than she usually is.

“I’m not a spy,” Arthur persists, and Mal is _done_ with this.

“Tell me who you are and who you work for,” he says, pointing the knife right at Arthur’s chest, “and I let you take a nice quiet walk out the airlock instead of letting Jayne in here to carve you up all into little pieces.”

Arthur straightens, lifts his chin. “My name is Arthur Pendragon,” he says, and this—Mal’s already got uneasy feelings about this, because isn’t Pendragon...? “My father is Uther Pendragon,” Arthur continues, “a prominent member of the Alliance Parliament and chair of the Special Council on Security. I was captain of the I.A.V. _Dortmunder_ for five and a half years, until we were taken by Reavers. Merlin rescued me; as far as my father and anyone in the Alliance know, I died in the attack.” He spreads his hands out, palm up. “That’s all I can tell you, Captain. That’s all there is to know about me.”

“I doubt that,” Mal says, keeps his voice hard because this is worse than he’d imagined. Pendragon, he’s heard the name, heard the father mentioned with Miranda and Blue Sun; he’s deep in the top circles of Alliance brass, and don’t they always say the apple never falls far from the tree?

“I’m not my father,” Arthur snaps. “You and I wouldn’t be here if I were. You think I don’t know who you are, what this ship is? You think I wouldn’t have already turned you in if I was working for the Alliance? There’s certainly been opportunity.” There’s an anger in him, hard and hot, but he makes no move except to fist his hands at his sides. “Everyone I used to know thinks I’m dead, and that’s just fine with me. I’m not a Pendragon anymore.”

“Easy to say that,” Mal points out, because yeah, he’s gorram certain he’d never want a father like Pendragon Senior, either, but that doesn’t change facts: mere wanting don’t change your blood. “But you can’t think I’ll just take it all on good faith.”

Arthur shrugs. “I’m giving you the truth; that’s a gesture of good faith. And look,” he continues, interrupting Mal before Mal can get a word in edgeways, “I want to _stay_ dead. I don’t want that life back. I don’t care about being a captain anymore; that never took me anywhere I wanted to go. I’m done with that sort of responsibility. You’re my captain now.”

“Hijacking my ship ain’t exactly a good way of showing that.”

Arthur has the gumption to look not one little bit ashamed of himself. “I see trouble for my people, I’m not going to let it be. I’m going to take care of it.”

“Your people?” Mal asks, raising an eyebrow. 

Arthur starts a little at the words, like he hadn’t realized that’s what he’d said. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess—my people.”

Mal thinks about it for a moment. He doesn’t like Arthur, nor trust him, but they might be able to strike some sort of an accord here, because he’s not reading lies in Arthur’s face or words and it might be useful, having ex-Alliance around. 

And if things go south, well, the airlock will always be there, and that truly is a comforting thought.

*

All Arthur wants to do when he’s finally let out of his own room—fuck this, it feels like he’s six year old and being punished for digging foxholes in the flowerbeds next door—is lie down somewhere or maybe have a few pointed words with Merlin because he still doesn’t like this ship and clearly the ship likes him even less. His face hurts from being hit, his pride hurts from trying to persuade Reynolds _not_ to throw him out of the airlock, and all he really wants to do is climb back into Merlin’s rickety tin can of a ship and find somewhere else to pretend to be dead.

Instead he nearly runs head-on into Jayne, who apparently has nothing better to do than lurk around waiting to make trouble.

“Cobb,” Arthur acknowledges tiredly, and tries to push by, but Jayne stops him with one big hand on his chest.

“I want to make somethin’ real clear,” Jayne growls. “Anybody’s gonna be leadin’ a mutiny on this ship, it’s gonna be _me_ , not some puffed-up prissy boy who ain’t even been here a month.”

Arthur stares at him. He’d been willing enough to explain himself to Mal because he’s coming to respect the man, just a little, but he feels no desire whatsoever to make it easy for Jayne pick a fight with him.

When he doesn’t say anything, Jayne gets right up in his face, scowling. “You hear me? You try and mutiny again, I’ll kill you faster’n tryin’ to breathe without air out in the Black,” and oh, that is just too much.

“I’ve been trained to kill since birth,” Arthur says witheringly, and ducks around Jayne quickly, making sure he gets out of grabbing range before Jayne can recover and come after him. “I know how to make it long and painful. You can lead all the mutinies you want, but try to come after me and I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.”

“I never said I _wanted_ to lead no ruttin’ mutiny!” Jayne shouts after him, outraged, but Arthur keeps going and Jayne doesn’t follow him, for which Arthur is grateful. He thinks he’s probably used up whatever luck he ever had today.

He finds Merlin at last in the mess with Simon and a beautiful dark-eyed woman who must be Inara, and he pulls up a chair with a sigh. Merlin he can deal with, but he’d rather not spend time around Simon if he can help it. The doctor rubs wrong against every nerve Arthur has, and won’t quit sending Arthur mistrustful looks, besides. Honestly, Arthur thinks. You do a little harmless flirting with a girl someone’s too shy to even make a move on, and all of a sudden you’re getting nasty looks for life.

Arthur really hates this ship.

“We’ve been talking about people,” Merlin tells Arthur unhelpfully when Arthur pulls up a fourth chair and the proper introductions are made. “Well,” Merlin admits after a pause, “they have, anyway. I don’t actually know anyone they’ve said so far.”

“You’re lucky; none of them are worth knowing,” Simon says, and Arthur starts a little at the warmth in his voice—when did Simon and Merlin become _friends_?

Inara purses her lips a little at Simon’s words in a manner which could mean anything from disapproval to hidden laughter, and expertly pours Arthur a cup of tea. “Have you ever been to Sihnon before, Arthur?”

“The gardens in the capital are spectacular,” he replies, nodding his thanks as he accepts the steaming cup. “It’s been years since I’ve been there, but I remember them.”

“They are beautiful,” Inara agrees. “I love walking there; everything is so lush, so bright and green; it helps you forget about the Black.”

“The gardens on Osiris don’t hold a candle to them, I’ve heard,” Simon says wistfully, and Arthur replies at once, forgetting for a moment that he doesn’t like Simon. There’s something that feels treacherously like homesickness somewhere under his chest, and talking about familiar places makes him both notice it and soothes the ache at the same time.

“But it’s the libraries on Osiris that stand out—the best in the ’Verse, probably. I’ve always wanted to explore them. Have you been?”

Simon shakes his head. “I was always too busy,” he says, adding dryly: “Medical school and surgery don’t exactly allow for much time indulging in antiquities. River’s been, though; it used to be we could never get her out of there once she went in.”

“I was there once,” Inara comments. “I accompanied a client on business. They’re amazing: rows and rows of books, all ancient and so full of things you can almost taste it in the smell of them.”

“I’d like to go,” Merlin says, wistful. “I’d like to see books again.”

Simon looks at him in surprise. “But the only book I’ve ever seen out on the Rim was Shepherd Book’s, and that burned when... well.” He clears his throat, blinking twice. “Londinium must be a more developed colony than I thought; or did you have a Shepherd there, too?”

Arthur wants to bristle at Simon’s assumption that Merlin’s an uncultured back-birth, but Merlin’s already speaking, dismissing it lightly.

“Oh, you know,” Merlin says, mouth twitching. “I’ve been around the ’Verse a few times myself.”

“I still can’t believe you made it anywhere in that miserable tub of yours,” Arthur grumbles. “I have no idea how it even stayed in the sky; we should both be dead.” Merlin grins.

“Magic touch,” he teases, twiddling his fingers, and Inara and Simon both laugh. Arthur doesn’t, just considers his cooling tea pensively, because magic doesn’t exist but the word still strikes a chord in him.

He knows there’s something off about Merlin, something different; he’d say Merlin was special but the word doesn’t quite fit, looks cheap and tawdry when compared with whatever Merlin is. Things _happen_ around Merlin. Arthur had known that from the moment Merlin had disappeared off his cruiser, of course, but living in close quarters with Merlin for two months had hammered the point home. Merlin moves differently, thinks differently, looks at Arthur differently than anyone else Arthur’s ever met. Merlin knows things, too, things it shouldn’t be possible for him to know. Arthur had known where the fuel cell depot on Beaumonde had been, but it was Merlin who had known how to blow it to bits without so much as a moment's hesitation.

Arthur watches Merlin without worrying about listening as the conversation moves on, slowly sipping at his tea while he considers the man.

He’d enjoyed the time on Merlin’s ship, if he’s honest, though he’ll never admit as much out loud. After the five _zao gao_ years he’d had leading up to it, it was satisfying not to have five hundred people depending on him and watching him, with hundreds more back at home criticizing his every order, waiting for him to make another wrong move. It was beyond liberating not to have to deal with his father in the weekly call that always left Arthur feeling drained and irritable and inexplicably guilty.

Merlin is chatty without being annoying, quiet without being taciturn. He’d regaled Arthur with stories about growing up in a tiny colony far away from anywhere, all of which seemed to involve Merlin running from neighbors or the sheriff or angry wild stallions, and Arthur had told him about his own youth: the echoing halls and magnificent empty rooms of his father’s house, the tutors he’d had and hated; about Uther himself, stern and strict and still the center point of Arthur’s life for so long.

He’d even told Merlin about his mother, something he’d never shared with anyone before. There had been something in Merlin’s eyes, an empathy that went beyond mere pity, which made Arthur think Merlin really understood what it was to feel loss that cut too deep to ever heal, even without a specific memory to anchor it in place.

Arthur watches Merlin now, talking with his hands as always while he explains something to Inara, his eyes lit up and his long fingers stroking across the air while he jabbers. Merlin... fits, like no one else has ever quite fit in Arthur’s life, and Arthur doesn’t know yet how he feels about that.

Eventually, the others join them at the table for protein meals, shaking Arthur out of his musing. Mal’s still regarding Arthur warily, and Jayne cracks his knuckles when he notices Arthur looking, but Arthur stays where he is, looking supremely unconcerned, as they all gather to share the meal before drifting off again in ones and twos, the hum of Serenity’s engines quieting as if the ship herself is settling down to sleep. Arthur leaves at last when it’s just Merlin and River left, because they’re hauling out the chessboard and scraps of cloth, and as much as he’s gotten used to their antics it’s still downright terrifying to watch the two of them playing blind chess.

He falls asleep long before Merlin comes back to the room, never sees Merlin stop and brush his hand across Arthur’s forehead, looking tired and troubled and far older than he seems.

“Whuzzat,” Arthur mutters, half-waking at the touch, and Merlin shushes him.

“Just me; go back to sleep.”

“Was asleep before you came crashing in here, waking me up,” Arthur grumbles into his pillow, and falls asleep again before he can hear Merlin’s quiet huff of laughter.

He wakes suddenly and completely in the dark terror of midnight, sweating through the thin sheets, his mind full of stone and crowns and creatures he’s never so much as heard of. Merlin is watching him from his own bunk across the room, eyes glinting in the low light.

“I dream about it too,” he says, his voice soft and full of some ancient yearning that makes Arthur shake.

“What is it?” Arthur whispers back, and Merlin looks away. “Merlin—”

“I’m not sure,” Merlin says, picking at his blanket. “I think—I don’t know. It’s probably nothing.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Arthur observes, settling back against his pillow. “You’re worse than Jayne.”

“Not worse than Simon?” Merlin asks, glancing over at Arthur through his lashes, and that’s just not fair.

Arthur snorts. “Simon has hidden depths. He’s probably secretly a criminal mastermind just waiting to destroy us all.”

“Destroy _you_ , maybe,” Merlin says. “You should leave him alone; you were getting along well enough tonight.”

“Watch out,” Arthur replies, making his eyes go comically wide. “The world is ending.”

Merlin laughs at that, quiet comfort in the sound, and there’s a calm silence that fills the room after that, Arthur watching Merlin without thinking or even particularly realizing he’s doing it.

“Are you happy here?” Merlin asks, just when Arthur is about to drop off into sleep again. “I mean, could you be happy here? Like this?”

Arthur blinks the warm weariness from his eyes and thinks about it for a moment. This life isn’t like anything he’s ever had before, and he still doesn’t know why Merlin chose this ship—and it was a conscious choice, as much as Merlin changes the subject whenever it comes up; Arthur didn’t live practically on top of Merlin for months without noticing a few things about the man—but he trusts Merlin. He doesn’t trust Merlin to remember things like breakfast or even to avoid getting himself killed while doing something as simple as laundry, but... Arthur trusts him.

“Yeah,” Arthur says. “Yeah, I could be happy like this.”

* * *

Most of the time, Merlin knows exactly who he is. He is Merlin Emrys from Londinium, grew up in a standard one room prefab shack with his mother in a godforsaken colony filled with dust and drunks and not much else. He wasn’t near old enough to fight when the Browncoats took up arms against the Alliance, but he joined anyway, young blood afire from every dead-end broken dream he saw around him, from every time raiders and scavengers had waylaid trains and supply ships to leave his town with nothing while the Alliance barely took the time to record it: the injustice of the ’Verse was a hot, rushing buzz beneath his skin. He’d made lance corporal, fought in battles ’til he was sick of the stink and the sound of them, and when the Independents started fighting themselves instead of the enemy that really mattered, he’d left: a one-man guerilla force caught between two armies, not caring who he killed anymore as long as it helped calm the rage pumping in his veins.

He’d fought, destroyed, left blackened ruins in his wake, and when the Alliance couldn’t catch him, couldn’t stop him, they’d had a trial and declared him guilty in absentia, put his face up all over the Cortex until the war ended and there were more exciting things to talk about. The anger hadn’t really helped, in the end, hadn’t filled the hole or calmed the restlessness he couldn’t define, and so he’d gone home at last to wait for something that would.

That’s his life, and most of the time that’s who he is.

Sometimes, though... sometimes things get confused.

Mostly he knows Will died long before Serenity Valley, vanished in a firefight that Merlin only barely escaped himself: both of them too young to think beyond the imagined victory to how much more necessary self-preservation might be. But sometimes he thinks Will died other ways, other places; sometimes it feels like Merlin’s been at his bedside as an old man, waited for a train somewhere that never arrived, held his hand as he sweated through the end of a hundred different viruses, each more incurable than the last. Too often, Merlin’s absolutely certain Will took an arrow through the chest, had gasped out his last horrible bloody breaths on the table in Merlin’s own home—which isn’t his home at all, not the one he knows.

The flashes and confusion get worse after the war, and at first he thinks that’s all it is. He tries doctors, first, who order medication which never arrives. He would think about asking for more but the magic is growing, the unexplainable things he can do grow more numerous by the day, until even his mother has fear in her eyes when she looks at him. He leaves Ealdor before they can run him out of town, and wanders into the desert, giving himself over entirely to whatever the madness is.

He tries to hold the visions close, in the wilderness, but the more desperately he grabs the faster they fly away; he learns to wait instead, to watch. Sometimes he’s Emrys, like and yet unlike Merlin Emrys: he knows a different life, different friends and companions. Sometimes he’s Ambrosius, who is also sometimes Merlyn, their memories and destinies and grief entwined to confusion. The visions flicker too quickly to make out more than a few details—here the cool surface of a lake, mottled blue and green; here a rough stone wall and the corner of a scarlet tapestry; there the rim of a simple goblet, glinting in the sunlight.

There is always an Other with him, a constant presence—or rather, the _lack_ of an Other, because Merlin never sees him, never has even a glimpse of his face. He’s present only in a relentless sense of loss which is strongest in the most distant memories but never goes away entirely. It’s a slow, deep ache that pulls at him even in his most lucid moments, a wound never fully healed. He tries for a long time to see the man, remember his name or his face, anything about him, but each time he does something throws him back, implacable, and the harder he tries to break through it the more fragmented his thoughts become.

The Aegir saves him, in the end. He finds it rusting near a small outpost in the middle of nowhere, and it takes him the better part of a month to make it air-worthy again, using the powers he’s just beginning to explore. Once he’s up in the sky, though, running hot instead of having both feet in the mud, his head clears. It becomes less important, less urgent to break down the walls he can feel in his mind. Off of the ground, he can explore them more clearly, and he senses no malice within them—they feel familiar, almost safe. He wonders if he put them there himself, though he doesn’t know yet why he would.

He meanders around the ’Verse, surviving mostly by chance and petty thievery until the day he goes on the drift just before being boarded by an Alliance cruiser—Arthur’s cruiser—and everything, _everything_ changes.


	4. Accidental

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mal’s up late one night, unsettled after the incident with Morgana, and it’s the only reason he ever cottons on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an alternate POV from a scene which hasn't happened yet; the existing parts aren't necessary for understanding this one.
> 
> Originally written for snottygrrl for help_haiti and posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/47634.html#cutid1). (19 January 2010)

Mal’s up late one night, unsettled after the incident with Morgana, and it’s the only reason he ever cottons on. They’ve been real careful, or this is real new; maybe both. Mal don’t make it his business exactly to know what his crew get up to between themselves, that’s not his place, but he does keep tabs on things – saves a cargo load of trouble down the line sometimes. He doesn’t know yet whether this is trouble or not, though, and that’s downright bothersome.

He’s barely closed the door to his quarters when he hears voices from the bridge, all quiet-like, and he stops to listen, puzzled. It ain’t usual for any of the crew to be out and about this late, but maybe he wasn’t the only one too stirred up for sleeping, and he’s halfway to the stairs before a low moan makes him think maybe there could be another reason two of his crew are up at such an hour.

He edges forward anyway, because while the moan sounded mighty like a pleasurable one, he knows too well that sometimes pleasant-sounding things ain’t what they seem. Gorram Saffron. His footsteps are silent, and he gets right up next to the stairs before leaning his head over and peering cautiously up into the bridge.

Merlin’s in the pilot seat, which ain’t strange in itself. It is strange that his eyes are shut tight though, and that his fingers are clutching hard at the seat instead of on the controls.

It’s even stranger that his trousers are gaping open and that Arthur’s kneeling in front of him, hands on Merlin’s knees and Merlin’s cock halfway down his throat, but Mal’s trying real hard not to think too much on that. He’s got no issues with them being sly; hell, he doesn’t give a single damn about that, but this is too-intimate, and he’s got no right at all to be watchin’. 

He tries to slip away silent as he’d come, but Kaylee’s left some manner of devil machinery lying about, and he trips over it with a godawful clatter. Arthur jumps to his feet, looking as terrified as Mal’s ever seen him – which is to say, he’s frowning with his eyes a mite wider than usual – and Merlin’s redder’n a new colonist after a day in Whitefall, trying to tuck himself back into his trousers and failin’.

Mal curses Kaylee ten ways from Sunday in his head, and mounts the stairs. May as well take what’s comin’ now; he’s never been much a fan of running from anything.

“Cap’n,” Merlin says, looking a bit frantic in the eyes, and damn, Mal’s never seen _anyone_ quite so red in the face, though the buyer on Beaumonde who’d tried to cheat him on one of his first jobs probably came close.

“This gonna make a problem for my crew?” he asks, leaning his shoulder on the doorway.

Merlin shakes his head so hard Mal’s afraid he’s rattling his brains. “No sir, no problems.”

Mal nods once. “Be sure of it. Now go on, it’s late.”

Merlin grins at him, that wide smile that makes him look more’n a little cracked, and practically scuttles out the door towards his quarters. Arthur hangs back, though, looking mighty uneasy, and Mal crosses his arms.

“Captain Reynolds—”

Mal doesn’t let Arthur finish. “You gonna cause me problems? Or him?” He jerks his head back in the direction Merlin ran. “Is this something that’ll be bad for _Serenity_?”

“No, but—”

“That’s all I need,” Mal says, interrupting Arthur again mostly because it’s good fun to watch Arthur’s lips get all thin with annoyance but also because he doesn’t want to keep talking about this, needed this whole experience like he needed a job gone sour. He relents a little when Arthur sighs unhappily, and adds: “It ain’t my place to tell anyone, either. No one’s gonna find out about this who doesn’t need to. And the way I see it, no on one this ship needs to know a thing.” 

Arthur lets out a breath. “Thank you, Captain.” 

Mal lets him walk by and waits until he’s almost out of sight before he calls out after him: “Next time, Pendragon, remember you’ve got your own quarters. I have standards on this ship!”

**Author's Note:**

> Translation assistance provided by the beauteous ignatia:
> 
> _ta ma de_ : literally "his mom's"; basically along the lines of "screw it"  
>  _zao gao_ : bad, unfortunate  
>  _gan_ : fuck


End file.
